Apple acquires Ascend․io, an agentic AI engineering startup

Apple recently struck a deal to acquire Ascend.io, a company focused on agentic data engineering technology.

Under the Digital Markets Act, Apple must now publicly report acquisitions above a certain size. This has given us new insight into the company’s acquisition strategy, including glimpses at its future goals.

The latest update to the EU’s “List of Acquisitions” website reveals a deal between Apple and Ascension Labs, Inc., perhaps better known as Ascend.io.

This is a typical acquihire situation, with Apple’s update saying it “will have the right to make employment offers to and hire certain employees” of Ascension Labs. The deal also includes a “non-exclusive license to Ascend’s intellectual property rights.” Apple will also be able to “be assigned certain patents” owned by the company.

Ascend.io describes itself as “the first Agentic Data Engineering platform,” with AI agents that “automatically handle all the tedious stuff” associated with data engineering. The company was founded in 2015.

Ascend.io’s website has also been updated with the following note:

For the past ten years we pursued a singular mission: Make Data Engineering Delightful. We introduced the industry’s first declarative data pipeline technology. We launched a unified platform that brought all of ingest, transform, and orchestration together. We invented DataAware automation. And most recently we pioneered Agentic Data Engineering — where agents work alongside teams across the entire data engineering lifecycle. Each chapter was different, but the goal the same: make life better for data engineers.

Earlier this month, Apple also struck a deal with an AI startup that lets musicians rework recorded music.

My favorite Apple deals right now:

- Pre-order the new Apple TV 4K and HomeView

- AirPods Pro 3 $199 (Reg. $249)

- M5 MacBook Air Up to $200 off

- M6 Mac mini: up to $150 off

- AirTag 2: from $17.50 each (Reg. $29)

- AirPods Max 2 $449 (Reg. $549)

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